The word Sabbath means "cessation" or "rest" and usually designates the seventh day of the week (i.e., from Friday 6 p.m. until Saturday 6 p.m. in Heb. reckoning) (cf. Exodus 31:15-17; Deuteronomy 5:12-15; Luke 23:53-54). It was a divinely revealed holy day for Israel to cease from ordinary labor and to celebrate God's rest from creation on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Nehemiah 9:13-14). Sabbath observance is the fourth of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:8) and served as a covenant and sign between the Lord and Israel (Exodus 31:13-17; Ezekiel 20:12). The religious leaders of Jesus' time emphasized the prohibitive aspect of the Sabbath and added further restrictions to it from their rabbinical tradition (Matthew 12:2-7; Mark 3:2). In contrast, Jesus emphasized (1) that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27), (2) that He was "Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28), and (3) that the Sabbath offered opportunity "to do good" and "to save a life" as well as to rest (Mark 3:4). With the judicial termination of the Mosaic legal system at the cross (Colossians 2:14), sabbath observance is not required of Christians (Colossians 2:16), and the notion of a "Christian sabbath" is foreign to NT directions to the church. On the sabbath year (i.e., every seventh year in Israel's calendar) the land was to rest by not being sown, cultivated, or harvested (Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7; cf. Nehemiah 10:31). God promised to provide for Israel's needs while the land lay fallow (Leviticus 25:20-22). One of the purposes for the seventy-year Babylonian captivity was to make up for Israel's failure to observe the sabbatical years (2 Chronicles 36:21; cf. Leviticus 26:34-35, 43) (see also JUBILEE, YEAR OF).

This topic is from the Lockman Foundation.